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May 2013 Entry - The lesser known hexcrawl

Hey guys,

Looooove the topic. Unfortunately I only found out a week ago and just didn't have a minute until last night. With less than five days to go, and most of them work-days, I'll need to cut some corners, I think. But I finally wanted to get into a Challenge again for a change. And I wouldn't be myself if I didn't try and subvert expectations a little... but more on that later.

### Latest WIP ###

...and yes, I got a bit more done than this last night, but I thought I'd tease for just a little while. Because, why the hell not. And getting the Hexgrid all nice and shiny wasn't as easy as it should be, thanks to Inkscape's gorram inefficient engine.

Isomage's SVG hexgrid generator is the best one I found: SVG Hex Grid Generator - just wish it had the ability to use centimeters, and to generate standard sized sheets filled with hexes. Ah, well, the world ain't perfect.

Right, so here we go for real now. The "less known hexcrawl" is of course the science fiction hexcrawl. Case in point being Traveller, which used (still uses, really) numbered hexes to map the universe. Players would use their ship to travel from one system to another, conducting trade and so on. Random tables determined if they ran into pirates or other spaceships. Systems were not very detailed; they used a string of hexadecimal numbers to describe the main world. While a primitive method, this did allow the Traveller authors to map out vast areas of space.

And that way, the Traveller setting really had the same problems any other hexcrawl had - no detail, no action, no story except for what players and their GM improvised based on the rules. The few game modules that were written and published were often set on systems at opposite ends of the setting, but some modules detailed smaller regions of space - such as 10x8 parsec sized subsectors; or an arbitrary number of neighbouring systems for a scenario in which the characters went on a treasure hunt.

About the image itself: The background is temporary (I hope). The placement of systems follows a modified version of the Mongoose Traveller SRD world creation rules (which I am making up as I work on the map). Time constraints probably (almost certainly) mean that I will not be able to map every hex on this map, let alone roll up stats for all systems... There are, after all, about 4000 hexes on this map. Original image is A1 (84x59cm), so I will be posting severely scaled down versions while I work on it.

I was wondering if someone would put together a planetary system hex map. I mean really, it's the perfect game mechanic for games such as Firefly and Traveler. Anyway nice job so far and looking forward to seeing more.

Looks great! The blank one kinda made me nauseous because it's like looking through a fly's eyes. Word of warning (probably way too late for some) don't scroll or make sudden movements on the black and white grid if you're prone to motion sickness.

And I don't recall if it was you or someone else within the guild that made a tut about using a Photoshop /fog/blur filter for making the spacey background. It certainly sounds like something you'd do.

Thanks for your kind words - unfortunately, as always, Map Challenges seem cursed for me. I have done almost no work this week due to some work-related issues and an urgent personal matter that came up. I will continue work on this map of course, but I won't be able to finish it for this challenge.

This is what I have; I rolled up more systems and even got a Hyperspace Anomaly (natural 18 on the "type of special" roll), which is the group of shaded hexes.